


The Debated Meanings of Hokahey

by elfin



Series: Hokahey! [1]
Category: Flatliners (1990)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 17:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20474750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Steckle’s publishers sent me a copy of his book. I read it. Twice. Then I got on a flight back to Chicago.





	The Debated Meanings of Hokahey

Steckle’s publishers sent me a copy of his book. I read it. Twice. Then I got on a flight back to Chicago. 

It walks that fine line between reality and fiction. He documented the experiments, but after everything that happened, I never thought he’d use any of it. Joe shot footage, but to my knowledge none of it has ever made it into the public domain. Certainly the book doesn’t mention it. What surprised me about it most is the detail, the little things that set the scenes, the things I thought I’d forgotten until I read his words and it all came flooding back. 

Like the first night, after Nelson flatlined, we stopped at a store on our way back to his place. I parked the jeep in the alley and examined Nelson in the back, shooing the others away to give him some space. I remember him being triumphant but at the same time, oddly withdrawn. His insane scheme to experience death had been a success. He should have been calling publishers with his story. I figured he was taking time to process. He was talking nonsense about the noises under the traffic, the humming of the street lights, a dragging sound that he insisted was getting louder. It seems a strange thing to remember, not surprising that I forgot, but Steckle’s description brought that memory back as vividly as if it was yesterday; the sweet sickly smell from the bins and the bitter hot steam from the pavements, the brightly coloured graffiti on the walls, demonic faces grinning down at us. 

The store too, when I went to find them, the strange blue lighting, the whirring of the chillers, the argument we had in hushed voices about who went next. 

The other nights. The empty cafe after Joe went, drinking coffee and smoking in the canteen after the staff had all gone home; Nelson asking him if he’d felt anything negative. I should have been paying attention. One thing I hadn’t forgotten is the panic that set in when we lost power while Rachel was under; the sound of dripping water, the smell of frying electrics. Hurling blame at Nelson when he came clean about the side-effects.

But what struck me most was the chapter about me going to apologise to Winnie Hicks, because Steckle wasn’t there, and I sure as hell didn’t tell him about it. Which leaves only one person who knows what happened that day. The whole story is told from the point of view of a third party narrator, doesn’t judge, doesn’t offer any possible explanations. It just sets out what happened and leaves the reader to make up their own mind. 

It tells of how Nelson appeared at my door, raw injuries to his face, scared out of his mind, not wanting to be alone. The strange journey out of the city; me clinging to the hope that I was doing the right thing, him on the verge of a psychotic break. He must have described all that, and it made me wonder how close he and Steckle had grown over the intervening years.

There was something about the peace and quiet of the Hicks’ place that was at the same time calming and unnerving. There isn’t any detail in the book about my brief conversation with Winnie, no way Steckle could know what happened inside the house and I give him credit for not making something up. But the brutal description of Billy’s attack on Nelson that afternoon made me feel sick the first time I read it. 

I never saw Billy. What I did see, when I got back out to the jeep, was Nelson simultaneously trying to drive the sharp spike of my pickaxe through his own cranial socket, and fighting against himself to stop it. I convinced myself it was all his head, that he’d been the cause of all the injuries he’d been blaming on Billy. Someone subjecting themselves to that kind of violence, I should have taken him straight to a psych ward, had him committed for his own safety. But as bad as that would have been, what I did was worse. I drove us back to the city, and I palmed him off on Joe and Steckle, who back then were two of the least reliable people I knew. If I hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have done what he did next. At least, not alone. It was a shitty, cowardly thing to do to a friend. 

But the way it’s told in the book, from Nelson’s point of view, a kid made entirely of hatred and revenge got into the truck through the tarp at the back, grabbed a pickaxe and tried to push it into his skull through his eye ball. It describes the way Billy smelt - ash, mildrew and sulphur - the black of his eyes, the warm spit that hit Nelson’s mouth as the sharp, relentless metal sliced into the side of his face. I remember it. I guess I’d hoped that Nelson didn’t, after everything that followed. At the end of the chapter, there’s a line that reads, 

‘Daniel saved Nolan’s life twice that day, and the sad part is, he didn’t know it.’ The names might have been changed to protect the guilty, but when I read the book my brain took to substituting our real names back in. I’d lived it. Steckle’s readers were just tourists, as Nelson loved to say.

Obviously I wasn’t the only one who’d turned down Steckle’s request to be interviewed. Much of Joe’s story is glossed over. Then again, given the drama Nelson brought to the table, Steckle didn’t really need anything more. It’s a shame, because in a way what happened to Joe threw into sharp relief what happened to the rest of us. He suffered the longest, tracking down all his victims took weeks. By the time he was done, it had been going on so long, I didn’t think he’d ever completely recover. 

The chapter that covers the resolution to Rachel’s story is told from her point of view. I still have trouble believing she saw what she said she saw, but whatever happened, it resolved a lot for her. I wasn’t there immediately afterwards, because I’d taken the call from Joe and Steckle and left her in my apartment to go pick them up. From the cemetery, we’d gone straight to the church and by the time she joined us, after picking up Nelson’s call, she’d already made peace, maybe with her father, more likely with herself. 

The following chapter is the one I should have been there for and wasn’t; Nelson taking Joe and Steckle on an impromptu tour of his childhood stomping grounds, and the cemetery where Billy Mahoney is buried. Steckle describes the place as unloved and crumbling, ‘creepy as fuck’ is the term he uses, and he vividly recalls the story Nelson told them. The description of the moment they realised the true horror in Nelson’s past, and the only way he could atone for it, is worded in such a way that I knew Steckle lay some of the blame at my feet. Billy was the reason for him wanting to do his crazy experiment in the first place. I’d told them to help Nelson find Billy, told him to find him and apologise. And the only way he could do that was by following the kid to his grave. That was on me. I hadn’t been able to deal with Nelson coming apart at the seams so I’d chosen to deal with Rachel instead. Easier that way, no complications. 

On the night, and again afterwards, Rachel told us what Nelson had said to her when he called her. Except he didn’t call her, he called me. And again, I wasn’t there for him. We found him after he’d been dead nine minutes. I won’t ever forget Rachel running into the church, telling us how long it had been. But the book has details of what was effectively Nelson’s suicide, his faltering grip on reality, his escalating fear, the choking terror, death his only escape. One line got me over any other. It said, ‘as he sank into the sickening darkness, as his life slipped away, he could only hope Sam would forgive him. Sam, and Daniel.’ 

That was Part One, the events that still haunt me when I stop to think, still stalk me in my dreams; the mistakes I made, the friendships I turned my back on when I Ieft. So much of Part Two, which is shorter and covers the days, weeks and months after those events, is new to me.

It doesn’t include the immediate aftermath, which was us miraculously getting Nelson back to my apartment without his heart giving out, bundling him into bed under a pile of blankets, getting him hooked up to an O2 cylinder before the oximeter started to scream hypoxia, watching the icy blue line of an ECG stutter its way through the night. Praying to a god none of us believed in not to let him die. Taking him to the hospital was too much of a risk for all of us but it didn’t change the fact that’s where he should have been.

Drinking too much cheap bourbon, too much strong coffee, waiting for Nelson to stabilise, to wake up. Until he did, we didn’t know how much damage there was that we couldn’t see, on top of that which we could. He‘d said thank you, back in the church, as he lay there, awash with chemicals, ribs broken, whole system in shock. But they were his only words for twenty-four long, horrible hours. I was so relieved when he finally opened his eyes and complained about the pain that I wanted to hug him. 

Steckle hadn’t touched on the immediate aftermath at all, for which I was grateful, relieved. Something else he didn’t write about, because he doesn’t know, none of them know, is that I had a thing for Nelson since I first laid eyes on him, my second day on campus. Call it what you like - fascination, crush, obsession - I never knew what to do with it. I tried most things; we went out for beers and nachos after class, we saw old movies together, met up early in cafes to discuss medical theories over coffee and doughnuts. We even tried sex. Well, something approximating sex; jacking each other off in the students union restrooms one particularly balmy night. Nothing scratched that itch, nothing was enough, not even the sex. He drove me crazy. Which was why I turned my attention to Rachel, because I thought it would be healthier. Maybe I thought it would be easier. Maybe it’s why I abandoned him that night, and why I eventually left Chicago for New York. I’ve never been able to ascribe words to the feelings I have for him. 

Nelson stayed with me for a week afterwards. He insisted on going to see the dean of the school on the Monday morning so I drove him. He was as white as a sheet and could barely walk in a straight line, shivering constantly. He put on three layers of clothing before we left the apartment. He kept his trembling hands in his coat pockets and told the dean he had the flu. Told her some other stuff too, about Rachel’s father and it being the anniversary of his suicide, something Rachel had witnessed as a child, about Joe’s break up with his fiancée and Steckle’s ill-placed loyalty to people who didn’t deserve to call him their friend.

All three of them were back in school two days later with an unofficial reprimand that wouldn’t go on their permanent record. He made me promise not to tell them what he’d done. Nelson was back in class seven days after he’d died for just shy of a quarter of an hour. Rachel called me that same afternoon, told me he’d been jittery, a little jumpy, but okay. It was Nelson, after all, I was certain he’d be all right. I didn’t kick him out of my apartment, but we both knew it wasn’t going to work with us both under the same roof for too long, so he didn’t come back to mine that evening, he went home.

Part Two starts the morning after Nelson went back to class. He’d turned up at Steckle’s place on campus at one in the morning. Steckle didn’t sleep much back then, I don’t know if he does now, but he’d let Nelson sleep in his bed and left him there when he’d come to meet us in the canteen for breakfast. To this day, I don’t know why he went there and didn’t come to me. Maybe he’d thought Rachel would be staying over, but apart from the night after she flatlined, we didn’t sleep together again. The night I sat watching the ECG silently monitoring Nelson’s struggling heart beat changed everything for me, and I was finally able to admit to myself that while Rachel was intelligent and funny and beautiful, she wasn’t what I really wanted. Wasn’t who I really wanted.

The dialogue from the breakfast scene in the book doesn’t stray far from what I remember of the gist of Steckle’s point that morning. Something along the lines of,

‘He can’t stay in that apartment. It’s too clinical. He needs to be somewhere we can keep an eye on him. He’s not right, not well. I think something’s wrong. Besides, his floorboards are stained with his own fucking blood.’ He told us all, but he was talking to me. Thinking back, I wonder if he did know, or at least suspected, about us. Certainly, he takes a few side-swipes at me in his writing. I didn’t think he and Nelson were ever particularly close, but reading it made me think maybe that changed. ‘He shouldn’t be alone all the way out there. He died, for Christ’s sake. For fourteen minutes. It’s a miracle he’s alive. How can we expect him to just go back to normal? How can any of us go back to normal?’

‘He can stay with me.’ I said it because Steckle’s eyes were boring into the side of my head. In the book, he’s very gracious and gives me the credit for the offer. But in the narrative as in reality, it was overriden by Rachel, who pointed out that there was a spare room in her building on campus, just across the hallway from hers. It was a significant change from Nelson’s well-appointed place in a recently renovated building on the other side of the city, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

I helped him move out of his apartment, he seemed to tire easily and he certainly couldn’t drive. I’d imagined it would take several trips but all he had was a couple of boxes of clothes and books, bedding, toiletries and his hockey stick. I remember being struck by that. My apartment was full of stuff picked up on trips; stupid trinkets, memories, presents from from friends. He had nothing like that. I felt a little broken by it. Unpacked, he barely filled the space; a large room with a king-sized bed, original fireplace, and en suite bathroom with a claw-foot bath and tiny shower. We were done by late afternoon, and I think I said something about needing to get back. That’s when he apologised to me, unreservedly, for involving me in his scheme, for not telling me about Billy when he should have done, for letting me go under when he knew there were more dangers than we were aware of. He practically begged me to forgive him, for me not to become another Billy in his life. I thought it was a little too much drama even for Nelson, but he looked so vulnerable still, defences gone, fear still lurking at the edges of his mind. 

I’m not proud of what I did. I knew what he wanted and I knew what I needed, and suddenly all the terror, anger and stress overwhelmed me. I have these little mental arguments with myself some nights, part of me certain that I didn’t force myself on him, that he was strong enough to fight me if it wasn’t what he’d wanted. The other part reminds me that his ribs were still mending, that he was still on edge, still frightened of what could hide in the shadows. I reason that I’m not a rapist, that if I’d sensed any hesitation from him, any resistance, I would have stopped. I make the case that as obsessed as I was with Nelson, he was just as obsessed with me, and even if it wasn’t what he’d had in mind, he still wanted me. My own brain replies with maybe, but not in the way that it happened. 

I fucked him on the unmade bed, and if I was less than gentle, I tell myself it’s because he didn’t want gentle. Honestly, I don’t know what the truth is. I know it wasn’t the start of anything, more like the end. 

Less than a month later, I left Chicago. 

Everything had changed. And while it would be nice to say that sharing such traumatic events glued us together, it did the opposite. I barely saw Nelson after that evening. When I did, he was withdrawn, jittery, and I started to convince myself I’d take advantage of a friend who’d needed nothing more than someone to talk to. However many times Steckle reminded me that it was Nelson, that he had thicker skin than all of us put together and would ultimately get through it, he wasn’t there the morning we drove out to Winnie Hicks’. He didn’t seen Nelson laid bare; hurting, terrified of his own shadow. That was the man I’d fucked in a strange bedroom across the hall from Rachel’s. Not the cock-sure mad genius we’d all got to know; to love and hate in equal measure. Realising that was part of what made me leave. 

According to the book, Joe’s got an elective surgery clinic. That doesn’t surprise me. That he graduated did, but Joe always was the solid doctor amongst us. Rachel also graduated. She’s married to a doctor and they have their own private practise which supplements her voluntary work at an palliative care hospice. I still miss her. Steckle dropped out of medical school before the exams, although it doesn’t say why. That saddened me, because he was good, if a little distracted. Writing was his first passion, though, and given the position of his book in the best sellers list, he’s made a success of it. The greatest surprise is that Nelson moved into teaching. I would never have credited him with the patience or the temperament, but maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did.

I took a cab from the airport to the school. The only address I had was Steckle’s, which I’d got from his publishers after getting in touch. They’d sent me the book on his instruction, despite my refusal to be involved with it, so it didn’t take much to get his address out of them. I had no idea if he’d be home, if he’d even be in Chicago. He could have been away on a promotional tour for all I knew, but if he was I’d go over to the school and wing it. 

He lived within walking distance of the campus, in the middle of a short row of brownstones, so I let the cab driver go before I tried his doorbell. He answered almost immediately, sounding like he was expecting someone.

I pressed the button next to the speaker phone. ’It’s Dave.’

‘Dave who? Oh, shit! Dave?’ A single buzz and the door clicked open. He was one storey up and met me with a bear hug on the landing as I got to the top of the stairs. I dropped my bag and hugged him back. ‘I can’t believe you’re actually here!’

His kitchen reminded me of his old place on campus, except that the tiles were white instead of nicotine brown and the floor was porcelain not Lino. He handed me a beer and pulled up a couple of stools to the breakfast bar. ‘It is so good to see you. How are you? What are you up to? Did you read the book...?’

‘I’m working in the Bellevue ER.’ 

‘You graduated.’ It was said with relief, not surprise.

’From NYU. You didn’t, according to the book which yes, I have read.’

‘And… you’re okay with it?’

‘Would it matter if I wasn’t?’ I let him suffer for a second or two. ‘I’m fine with it. I actually enjoyed it, in a strange way.’

He lit up. ’Really?’

‘Really.’ 

‘Oh, thank God. You were the only one who wouldn’t return my emails and I was worried if I published and you hated it, you’d sue the crap out of me.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t return your emails. I’m sorry I didn’t give you an interview.’

‘Hey,’ he waved away my apology. ‘I’m surprised anyone did. Doubly surprised Nelson did.’

I itched to ask about him, but I didn’t. ’But not Joe.’

‘No. He okayed the book but he didn’t want to be involved. We stayed in touch but he’s in LA.’ He’d left that detail out. 

‘Rachel was happy to talk to you, I take it.’

‘Rachel and I met for coffee every morning for a month. With Nelson it was mostly evenings after classes, over beer and nachos.’

Finally I plucked up the courage to ask, ‘How is he?’ 

‘He’s fine. Teaching.’

‘Yeah, that was a surprise.’ 

Steckle opened his mouth like he was going to offer an explanation, but hesitated. ‘I can’t say it was like a duck to water exactly, but the students seem to respond to him.’ I got the feeling there was more, but that Steckle wasn’t the one to tell me. 

‘Do you think he’ll see me?’

He looked at me, quizzical expression on his face. ‘Why wouldn’t he? Whatever happened between you two, Dave, it was a long time ago. As surprising as it may sound, Nelson isn’t the kind of guy to hold a grudge.’

‘I’ll take your word for that.’ I emptied my beer and Steckle got me another without asking. ‘The two of you are close?’

‘We became friends. Rachel pulled away from us for a while. She lost you, and once you were gone, Nelson backed off. Obviously.’

‘Obviously?’

‘Jesus, Dave, just how blind to him were you? It wasn’t you he was jealous of, it was her. You were all over her, you even palmed him off on us to stay with her the night he….’

‘I know. If I hadn’t, Nelson wouldn’t have done what he did.’

’Oh, no, you can’t blame yourself for that. He made up his mind on the sidewalk outside Rachel’s place. Talk to him, ask him. He doesn’t blame you and you shouldn’t blame yourself.’

‘I bet he hates me for leaving.’

‘Hate’s a strong word. You might not have broken his heart, metaphorically, but I think he loved you, or thought he loved you. The thing about Nelson, luckily he makes a fast recovery. You saved his life that night. He’s never forgotten that. Please, just talk to him.’

It was the reason I’d come back, after all. ’So… Where can I find him?’

He glanced at his watch. ‘At this time? He’ll be at the church.’ 

I almost laughed. ‘You’re not telling me he got God?’

Steckle actually choked on his beer. ‘Christ, no. He just got grateful.’

I hadn’t been back there since that night, I realised. The renovations were long-since finished. Pews in formal lines stood over the place where four of us had died and been resurrected. There was a large altar in the chancel, and I vaguely recognised the imposing statue of Jesus on the cross. A tall pulpit gave a commanding, intimidating view over the congregation, although at this time of the evening, there was only a single person sitting in the pews, about half way down, half way across on the right. I recognised the ash blond hair, the almost arrogant, challenging set of his shoulders, and the butterflies in my stomach took flight. How I could have thought, even just for a second, that he’d found God? There was a time Nelson thought he was God. Still, I remember him wearing a small cross on a chain around his neck back then, and I never asked why or where it came from. 

I hesitated, still uncertain if it was a good idea to see him again. But I’d come a long way, so I pushed on the iron filigree door and stepped through, closing it quietly behind me. Still, it gave a metal clang as it shut, and Nelson turned his head. His eyes followed me down the aisle until I slipped into the pew beside him.

‘Dave.’ His voice was low, respectful but not a whisper.

‘Hey.’ I met his eyes, sky blue with a few more lines under them but no huge change in the years since I’d last seen him. I looked away, pretended to look around. ‘They did a neat job.’

‘Yeah. I always loved it here.’

‘Steckle told me where to find you.’

‘He thinks it’s weird that I come here. But it’s peaceful. And everything that happened… it was a long time ago.’

A draft picked up outside, got in through the cracks and I shivered. Too many memories. Too many ghosts. The feeling like something in here still wanted us. I glanced at him and he was smiling at me in the same way he used to before the experiments, before Rachel. I missed that smile every day. ‘Can we...?’

‘Sure. There’s a place round the corner. Let me buy you a beer.’

It was a throwback to our medical school days; dark wood, sticky floor, low level lighting and brewery names in dirty neon. 

‘Hey, Nelson,’ the guy behind the bar with a cloth over his shoulder held up a hand in greeting. 

‘Hi, Bill.’

‘Beer?’

I watched this new version of Nelson lean on the bar, hold up his index and middle fingers. ’This is Dave, an old school friend.’

Bill smiled at me, waved a greeting and snapped the tops off two bottles of something brewed locally, at least according to the label. Nelson paid, and led me over to a booth towards the back of the room. Easy friendliness wasn’t something I’d ever associated with him and it threw me. As difficult, as frustrating as the old Nelson was, even over the last decade I’d thought of that guy as ‘my’ Nelson. This was someone else, someone more grounded.

The first thing I noticed was the way he was holding his beer, not a million miles from the way he used to hold a mug of coffee; hands wrapped around it like he was trying to absorb the caffeine as well as the warmth through the china, even in the warmer months. But he held the bottle between both hands, almost like a toddler might, and suddenly I realised why he’d gone into teaching, why he’d turned his back on the career he’d died for, at least the first time.

‘You lost the feeling in your fingers.’

He glanced down as if he’d only just noticed. ‘Oh, yeah. Lack of blood to the brain, lack of signals to the nerves, connections break down….’ He shrugged like Steckle had done and I wondered if it’s what he’d almost told me. ‘I don’t think I’d have made a great doctor anyway.’ His self-deprecating smile was more like the Nelson I knew and had once loved, or something approximating it.

‘You didn’t tell me.’

‘Before you left, I thought it was a side-effect, thought it might come back over time. I know, I know….’ He should have known better. I didn’t need to say it. ‘I almost took the top of my index finger off with a scalpel in class, sliced straight through to the bone when my hand slipped. They sewed it back together, sent me for a raft of tests.’ He shook his head. ‘Game over.’ 

‘I’m sorry.’

The way he looked at me was so familiar it wound the clock back the decade or so since we’d last had a beer together.

‘For what? None of what happened was on you.’

‘That last night....’

He sat back, disbelief clear. ‘Jesus, Dave, have you been carrying that around with you all these years? I should have told you. Four hours in the jeep gave me plenty of opportunity to come clean. All that stuff you said about atonement. I almost asked you how I was supposed to do that given Billy was dead, but before I could I knew the answer. And I knew you’d try to talk me out of it, or refuse to help me go again. I was a mess by then, scared out of my mind. You and I both know I wasn’t entirely sane to start with.’ His look was rueful, inviting me to share the joke. All this guilt I’d carried because I thought I deserved it. Some of it about leaving him with Joe and Steckle to go with Rachel, almost costing him his life. But not all of it. 

‘I don’t blame you for choosing to stay with Rachel that night, rather than deal with my sorry ass for longer than you already had. So what is it you’re really sorry for?’ He gazed at me, odd smile playing on his lips. ‘For leaving?’

‘For what I did that afternoon.’

He looked genuinely confused. ‘Which afternoon?’

‘The afternoon we moved you into the room opposite Rachel’s.’

‘Okay.’ Still he was frowning, like he was trying to remember. ‘What is it that you think you did?’

I leaned in. ’I assaulted you.’

Realisation dawned. But I wasn’t expecting the shy little laugh. ‘That’s not how I remember it. We both wanted what happened. Hell, Dave, we’d wanted it for years. Is that why you left?’

‘You weren’t... you. You were… fragile, still healing. I took advantage.’

‘Christ. I was as present that afternoon as you were. And I’m not sure I’ve ever been described as ‘fragile’.’ The way he said it, the calm tone, that was never his way. He used to rage against everything; me, the others, his tutors, the world. There was a certain serenity about him now, contentment. I guess dying twice in a week does that to you. I don’t think the experience changed me, not my death at least. His. That changed me. 

‘You saved my life.’ 

I’m not sure either of us will ever get over that. ‘Doesn’t change the fact that I shouldn’t have done what I did.’

‘Why?’

‘Because... I was your friend.’

He let out a frustrated sigh and sat back. ‘You didn’t do whatever it is you imagine you did! Have you seriously been thinking you forced yourself on me? And I just took it? Let you... what? Get it out of your system?’ He hesitated, reached for his beer and cupped it in one palm. ‘I loved you. I worshipped the ground you walked on.’ He sat forward. ‘From the day we met I would have dropped to my knees and sucked your cock through your jeans if you’d asked. That afternoon, I thought, was the start of something I’d been waiting years for, something I thought I’d never have once you started chasing Rachel. And then you left. So if you need to feel guilty about something, if you need to be sorry about something, be sorry for leaving. Not for fucking me, because I wanted you and I enjoyed every second it.’

I’d spent so long convincing myself I’d practically raped him, that to hear it was all in my head, I suddenly found myself thinking about that afternoon, and the days and weeks that followed, in a whole different light. 

‘Re-evaluating a few life choices, Dave?’ It was the first thing he’d said that sounded like the old him. ‘I’d better keep the beers coming.’

Why had I really left? Did being attracted to Nelson scare me? He wasn’t the first guy I’d been with but he was probably the first one I’d felt anything for beyond wanting sex. I’d known I was bisexual most of my life, I’d come to terms with it, and I’d wanted Nelson for so long, why did I run as soon as I got what I wanted? How had the most arrogant, self-important, irritating asshole I’d ever known come so far in ten years when it seemed like I’d not moved an inch? I was a moth to a flame when it came to him; he was dangerous, and I craved danger. Being around him was a thousand times more exciting than any of the climbs I sought out. And he was brilliant, beautiful, fragile in a way I was drawn to like a magnet. Maybe that’s why I ran. Because when he came apart, he came completely apart. 

I realised with a jolt that I was the asshole in our story. And Steckle’s book, however subtle the hints, made that crystal clear if you read between the lines. Nelson returned with two more beers, putting one into my outstretched hand. 

‘Does Steckle know what happened with us?’

He nodded as he slid back into his seat. ‘Not long after you left, he came round, insisted on us going out. I think he was keeping an eye on me, worried I was going to do something else stupid. A couple of years later, when he came to me and asked if I’d mind him writing the book, he promised he’d only write what I said on tape during our interviews. Nothing else. I read an early draft of it and he’d kept his word. Whatever it is that you’re beating yourself up over, Dave, you have to stop. Why were you the only one not to come out of the experience with a different point of view?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Rachel flourished after she forgave herself, forgave her father. She was different, less brittle. She passed every exam with incredible scores, she knew what she wanted and she went for it with a determination I hadn’t seen in her before. Joe… stopped being Joe. He was single until the final term when he met a third year student called Liz. They’re married now, living out in LA.’

‘And Steckle?’

‘He didn’t go, did he?’ 

He had a point. Still, he was right there with us. ’Why did he quit medicine? He was the one in love with the idea of being a doctor.’ 

Nelson hesitated. ‘There was… an incident. Before finals he was doing a rotation in the ER. A kid - eight years old - crashed after being brought in from an RTC. Crash team handed Steckle the paddles and he froze. He told me later it was the idea of bringing a child back, knowing what might come back with him. He dropped out a few days later. He wrote a couple of articles about the hospital for the Chicago Tribune, got some freelance work, started on the book. He’s happy, I think. He’s been dating a woman from the publishing house for around six months, I don’t know if it’s serious, he’s never talked about marriage but he seems contented enough.’

‘I like his place.’ 

Nelson nodded. ‘Yeah. We used to rent it. When the landlord decided to sell up, he bought it.’

‘You lived with him?’

‘We were flatmates for a few years, while I trained to be a teacher. I moved out a year or so ago, got a place not far from here. You’d like it. It reminded me of your old apartment. Probably why I took it. Ah, finally a smile.’ Yeah. I was being a miserable bastard but nothing about the day had gone the way I’d imagined it would. 

‘Sorry.’

‘Please stop apologising.’

I managed a bitter laugh. ‘I’m not sure I know how.’

‘Hey.’ He pressed his hand against the back of mine where it was wrapped around the bottle, unconsciously mirroring him. I stared at it. ‘If you need my forgiveness for something, I forgive you. For whatever it is you think you did wrong. And for leaving. For all of it. So please, stop blaming yourself for my arrogance, my mistakes, my insane need to do something just for the fame of it.’

I tore my gaze from his hand and looked at him. His expression was sincere, nothing ugly in his eyes now. I think in that moment I might have fallen in love with him all over again. 

‘It was never about fame.’

‘No. But it was easier to let you all believe that then tell you the truth.’

‘You wanted to know what happened to Billy.’

‘I should have known better. I like to think of myself as a man of science and yet I almost cost us everything in a pointless search for a religious construct I didn’t have a chance of finding even if it existed.’ My confusion must have shown on my face because he clarified, ‘If there is a heaven and a hell, I’m going down.’

‘I don’t think you were looking for heaven or hell. I think you wanted to understand what you’d done to Billy. If there was nothing, or if whatever you felt at the moment of death was comforting, I think you might have been able to make some sort of peace with yourself, with what happened.’

He withdrew his hand, but stroked the backs of my fingers with his own before grasping his beer and raising it to his lips. ‘You’re a wise man.’ I was suddenly and inexplicably overwhelmed by him, by the bar, by our almost suffocating history all around me. 

‘Can we take a walk?’

He looked surprised but not fussed. ‘Sure.’

We stepped out into the warm evening and set off in back in the direction of the church - dark now - towards, I assumed, his place. I expected him to light up, then I realised I couldn’t smell cigarettes on him the way I used to.

‘You quit smoking?’

He wriggled his fingers. ‘I kept dropping my lighter.’

That made me chuckle, and he looked at me with a rueful smile.

‘Why did you choose us?’ I wondered aloud. ‘Why did you choose me?’ 

‘I think I asked Rachel because I knew she had a vested interest. I didn’t know why, just that she was always asking patients about their experiences after they died and got resuscitated in the ER. She seemed like the responsible type, someone I could trust not to screw up and accidentally kill me with an overdose. And I think maybe I thought if she was onboard you’d be more likely to say yes. Randell was my control subject, wasn’t he? The voice of reason, not that any of us actually listened to him. I trusted him. In a way he was the obvious choice. And Joe, well, I knew he had a camera.’ We both laughed at that. ‘I was certain they could kill me, in a controlled way. Hell, I managed to kill myself in an almost controlled way.’

I remembered - won’t ever forget - the blood on his arm around the injection site, the broken syringe on the stone floor, the screaming of the ECG. ‘Almost.’

‘I needed you to bring me back, and not as a cabbage patch doll, as Rachel seemed to think would happen.’ He stuck his hands in the pockets of his trench coat and lifted his head to the darkening sky. ‘I hoped you cared enough to reach me, wherever I was, and pull me back.’

‘You know I did. Still do.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. My days of committing suicide just to see what’s on the other side are over.’

We walked a short distance in a comfortable silence, following the curve of the lake. I could hear the shouts and laughter of students, music coming from bars one street over, I could smell tacos and nachos, jerk beef and bbq chicken. 

‘Are you hungry?’ I asked him. He looked at me, a surprised, happy smile on his face, and nodded.

‘Yeah. I know a good place.’

He took me to a Mexican Grill a few minutes walk from the lake wall. It was busy but not heaving and we got a table on the terrace, overlooking the street. The smells from the open clay oven made my mouth water and I let him order what sounded like half the menu, two beers and a couple of tequila shots.

‘Where did Steckle get his hinky names for the book?’ I quizzed him as the tequila left a burning trail down the back of my throat.

‘I don’t have a clue. We’d been renamed in the first draft - Daniel, Nolan, Jason, Rebecca, Richard. I think maybe he picked up a year book at the school and picked names at random. I was worried that something might give us away, but he’s changed enough of the detail to throw any would-be super-fans off the scent. His publisher apparently told him there was a studio interested in making a TV series. He was thinking about it, but he said he wouldn’t give the go-ahead without all our consents. I don’t think he thought he’d get yours.’

I had no idea how to feel about that. ‘I’ll talk to him before I go.’

I saw a shadow pass over his face. ‘How long are you staying?’

‘Just the weekend. I’m back at work Monday morning.’

‘Where are you now?’

I told him about Bellevue, about my apartment in East Village, about a couple of close friends I liked to spend what little free time I had with. He asked if I still climbed, I told him the closest I usually came was a wall at a club I was a member of, but that I liked to get out to the ‘Gunks when I could. I asked him if he still played hockey and he said he played ice hockey with a local team. It took me a second to process that. I’d always thought of ice hockey as an insanely dangerous sport. 

‘It’s not conference level,’ he explained, presumably given the expression of horror on my face. ‘It’s nowhere near as fast paced. But I like the adrenaline rush.’

The table filled up with food; tacos filled with a nutty sauce and bbq chicken, nachos drowning in cheese and guacamole, burritos stuffed with pulled pork and rice. 

Finally, I asked the question that had been on the tip of my tongue since he mentioned living with Steckle.

‘Are you seeing anyone?’

If he thought it was a strange or amusing turn of the conversation, he didn’t show it. He shook his head. ‘Nothing serious. There’ve been a few people, over the years; friends of colleagues, friends of friends. I think the problem is, none of them were you.’ I stared at him, a nacho half-way to my mouth. I had no idea what to say to that. ‘You set the bar pretty high, Dave. I’m not sure how anyone was ever supposed to match it.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Really? Despite what we did that afternoon you were talking about earlier?’ He paused. ‘That was the first time I’d gone any further than a furtive hand job.’

Suddenly all the guilt I’d carried with me for a decade came back with full force. I felt immediately sick. ’I honestly didn’t know.’

‘Because I didn’t tell you. You’re not psychic. It’s what I’ve been saying all afternoon. I know there’s a lot I should have told you back then, about myself, about Billy, about my parents even. But I’m not the only one who held back. Why didn’t you talk to me instead of just leaving? If you’d thought you’d hurt me, why not ask?’

‘Right. Because we were so good at communicating back then.’

‘Fair point. I am better at it now, I’m told, at least with the important stuff. What about you? Any of your friends more than friends?’

‘Over the years, one or two. No one serious. I guess they weren’t you.’

He glanced at me over a taco, said nothing, just carried on eating, but perhaps the tension between us had relaxed a little. We talked of more inconsequential things while we finished the meal, sharing little snippets of our lives. It was nice. I hadn’t realised just how much I’d missed him until that night. It had never been easy being his friend, but it had always been rewarding. He may have been batshit crazy at times but he was never boring, never dull. I’ve never met anyone else like him and maybe that was a part of it too. I never considered myself a coward, but he scared me. He seemed less manic now, so much more at peace with the world and with himself, and I could feel that drawing me back to him. It had only been a couple of hours, but If he’d asked me stay at that moment, I’d would have.

We walked back to Steckle’s place. I’d left my bag there so I hoped he was expecting me back. I’d not asked, I’d not even thought about it. Nelson assured me he wouldn’t mind. I pressed the buzzer before Nelson produced a key. 

‘Used to live here, remember?’

Steckle had gone out, but Nelson directed me to the spare room which used to be his, showed me how to use the shower and the coffee machine. He was pouring us a couple of glasses of Steckle’s best bourbon when the phone rang. The answer machine picked up and Rachel’s voice came through the little speaker.

‘Hey, Randy. Thanks for your message. It’s great that Dave’s come back! Tomorrow’s fine. Lunch at Lancers? I’ll book a table for twelve. It’ll be good to see you all.’ Nelson got over to the phone and lifted the receiver. 

‘Rachel? Yeah, he’s out… somewhere. I’m here with Dave. He’s good, great actually. Yeah, we’re looking forward to seeing you too. Okay. Good night.’

I picked up the glasses, handed one to him. ‘You and Rachel didn’t….’

‘That was never going to happen, you know that as well as I do. It wasn’t you and I fighting over her, it was her and I fighting over you. When you left, we found common ground. She told me about her father eventually, about what she’d seen just afterwards in the church, and that night, in your apartment.’ He dropped into the comfortable brown leather couch and I followed him down. ‘I know you never believed in the physical stuff.’

‘I… I honestly don’t know what I believe.’

‘You think I attacked myself with a pickaxe in the back of your jeep.’

‘I thought you did, but I know you didn’t bash your own head in with your hockey stick.’

‘Winnie didn’t try to hurt you?’

‘No. But I never laid a finger on her physically. It was all verbal.’

‘Rachel was having visions of her father, that’s why she was freaking out. He didn’t try to hurt her because she didn’t hurt him. I was responsible for Billy’s death. Scaring me wasn’t ever going to be enough.’

‘You were just a kid.’

‘You don’t have to play the shrink. I had a therapist.’

That was a shock. ‘You had a therapist?’

‘For over two years. Rachel’s idea. She went to see someone too.’

‘You didn’t talk about….’

‘No. Although I said I’d been in an accident before I started medical school, that I’d been officially dead for a couple of minutes before I was revived. I mostly talked about my childhood and my parents, what happened with Billy and my time at Stoneham.’

‘Did it help?’

‘It did. I should have done it years ago. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt the need to do half the things I did. Maybe I’d be a doctor now.’ He didn’t make it sound like a regret, more like a missed opportunity. 

He shifted on the couch, turning to face me, tucking one leg under him. For a moment he looked just like he had a decade ago, before the experiments, when flatlining was just another crazy idea of his. 

I mirrored his position, leaning my head against the back of the couch with a yawn, early start catching up with me.

‘I’m sorry I left like I did. I went and I didn’t look back. And I love New York. The school was great, the hospital’s great. I love my job. I love my friends. But it would be a lie to say I’ve never thought about you, about all of you, a lie to say I don’t miss you.’

‘We miss you too.’ He glanced down into his glass before facing me again. ‘I miss you. But I know you have a decade’s worth of life in New York and I’m not the selfish asshole I used to be.’ 

‘That was never who you were.’

‘Yes, it was. Even with those rose tinted glasses you can’t deny that.’

‘I still loved you.’

‘Did you?’ He was honestly asking. 

‘I did. I think… I still do.’

It was Nelson who moved first, and as soon as he did, I followed. We met in the middle of the couch in a mash of lips and teeth. He tipped his head one way and I went the other, and our mouths slid together into a kiss that wasn’t too far from the last time. I pushed my fingers into his hair and he wrapped his arms around my neck and we were both lost. He tasted different, not of cigarettes and mint, but of bbq sauce, beer and bourbon. We somehow blindly got the glasses to the floor and I was half way down the line of buttons on his shirt when he stopped me.

I backed off instantly. ‘Sorry....’

‘You have to stop saying that. And I was only going to suggest moving to the bedroom in case Steckle brings his lady friend home. I haven’t met her yet and I’d rather her first impression of me wasn’t my bare ass.’

We made it to the spare room miraculously before we started leaving clothing all over Steckle’s apartment. He was going to know anyway, when he woke up to two guests and not the one he was hopefully expecting, but littering his apartment seemed unnecessarily rude and Nelson was right about first impressions. I didn’t want any misunderstandings this time, and although Nelson’s enthusiasm was hard to misinterpret, I wanted to see his face, to watch him come apart in a good way. 

There was lube and condoms in the bedside drawer, and the fact that he knew that notched up the intensity of it all. It meant he’d brought other guys home when he’d been living here, and I was damned if I wasn’t going to raise the bar even higher, high enough that no one else could ever match it. Flat on my back on the bed I watched him, wide eyed, as he rolled on the condom with his fucking mouth and crawled up my body to bite at my nipples before rising to his knees to take me inside him. 

He never took his eyes from mine, not even when I reached for him, wrapped my hand around his cock and matched his agonisingly slow rhythm. It felt like climbing a mountain with the most phenomenal view in the world, and when we reached the climax together the fall was just as perfect. 

He collapsed on top of me, head on my shoulder, laughing softly, happily. 

‘That was not how I’d imagined today ending when I got up this morning.’

‘Me neither. I swear this wasn’t my intention when I got on the plane.’

‘You mean you didn’t come back just to get me into bed?’

‘As unlikely as it seems, no I didn’t. That’s not to say it isn’t the best result I could have wished for. I actually thought I’d consider it a win if you didn’t punch me in the face and tell me to fuck off back to New York.’

He lifted his head. ‘I know I worked hard to deserve this low opinion you’ve got of me, but I’m hoping I’ve done enough to start changing it.’

I kissed his forehead, and he wriggled up far enough so I could reach his mouth. I’d have offered up the rest of my life to him at that moment, but then, he’d always had that affect on me.

The sounds of Steckle making coffee was enough to rouse us. We threw on the same clothes from the day before and wondered out into the kitchen. He must have heard the bedroom door, because before I made it into view, he was calling to me,

‘Morning, how did it go with….’ He looked up and smiled when he saw the two of us. ‘I see it went well. Nelson.’

‘Morning, Randell.’ There was a smugness to his voice that made me want to laugh, but I didn’t.

‘I hope you didn’t mind me staying. Nelson had a key and I’d left my bag.’ 

He waved a hand in the air. ‘Hey, mi casa es tu casa. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.’

‘Rachel left a message.’

‘Yeah, I spoke to her. She told me she’d spoken to Nelson. Lunch is okay with you guys, I take it?’

‘Absolutely. It’ll be really great to see her. Do you mind if I take a shower?’

By the time I finished, there was a coffee waiting for me, and the offer of toast or cereal. Nelson was nowhere to be seen. 

‘He nipped home to shower and change,’ Steckle explained without me even asking. ‘He’ll be back in time.’

‘He still doesn’t drive?’

Steckle looked at me, a strange expression on his face. ‘He can’t drive. He’s not allowed.’ I knew just from his tone that there was something Nelson hadn’t told me. Steckle sighed. ‘He didn’t mention it. Of course he didn’t.’

‘Mention what?’

‘Not too long after you left, he had a fit. He has epilepsy. They have it well under control now. I don’t think he’s had a attack in the last couple of years.’

He and I needed to have a serious talk about what constituted ‘the important stuff’. ’He told me about the loss of feeling in his fingers.’

‘Some winter mornings he can’t feel his hands. And he limps when his ankle’s bad. But given how bad it might have been, he considers himself lucky.’

I was about to ask about his ankle when I remembered seeing him limping up the stairs to my apartment the morning we drove out to Winnie Hicks’ place. Another injury blamed on a dead kid, another injury he couldn’t possibly have inflicted on himself. Still, after all this time, it was hard to believe.

‘You know, you could have called me.’

‘He didn’t want us to. He didn’t want you to feel obligated or responsible. He made the decision to flatline without us. He could have told us, could have asked for our help but he didn’t. Everything he did, Dave, it was on him.’ 

‘He got to you too, huh?’

Steckle gave a wry smile. ‘He’s changed.’

‘I noticed.’

‘I know you two have history, but he’s my friend and I picked up the pieces last time. So if I’m going to be doing it again, you have to warn me.’

I leaned my elbows on the counter, wrapped my hands around the coffee mug and voiced the decision I’d made last night, as I’d lain in bed with Nelson snoring softly in my ear, his arm across my chest, his foot hooked around my mine. 

‘Not this time. I need to give the hospital time to find a replacement, but there are what, at least fifteen medical centres in Chicago? I hope I won’t have too much trouble finding a position here.’

‘You’re moving back? After one evening?’ I shrugged, nodded. ‘Wow. I know he’s good but that’s a little crazy, isn’t it?’

‘I should never have left.’

‘But you did. And you waited a decade before coming back.’

‘I tried to forget, which was wrong. I should have done what you all did, I should have dealt with what happened, come to terms with it, let the experience change me. That’s what Nelson did and he’s… he’s so different from the way he was.’

‘He had a lot more to come to terms with than the rest of us.’

I drank my coffee, and Steckle put a plate of toast in front of me, pushed the butter and something fruity and sweet in an unlabelled jar across the counter. 

‘Can I ask you something, just between you and me?’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you believe that Billy actually hurt him? I mean… you were the one to question that, you were the one who said physical contact wasn’t possible.’

He leaned back against the cupboards, hugging his coffee to him the same way Nelson used to. ‘There’s no other explanation. There is no way he did those things to himself. So as impossible as it was, as unlikely as it seemed… yes, I think somehow the ghost of Billy Mahoney manifested as a physical entity and attacked him, inflicted as much pain and suffering on him as he had on Billy all those years ago. I tried to find another explanation when I was writing the book, but there just isn’t one. He put five deadbolts on the door of his apartment that Thursday afternoon. He told me they were all still in place when he regained consciousness Friday morning, after Billy attacked him with his hockey stick. The rest of it - you, Joe, even Rachel - I could put down to hallucination, but not that.’ He hesitated. ‘You know, you were all very quick to turn on him when it all went sideways but you’d all willingly jumped on his bandwagon. That bidding war between Joe and Rachel, in the store barely an hour after we’d only just managed to resuscitate Nelson, that was all them. He wasn’t even there. He might have goaded you into going, but you went of your own free will, and when it turned out not to be the joyride you all imagined it was going to be, he got the blame.’

There was a thread of anger in Steckle’s tone that surprised me. ‘You didn’t defend him at the time.’

‘I didn’t go for his throat either. Look, it was a long time ago. Writing the book... brought it all back, made it feel very immediate again, and listening to Nelson talk night after night for weeks… he put me in his shoes over those few days and it wasn’t a great place to be. We’re older now, wiser, these days we’d handle everything differently. Back then, you guys were all so competitive.’

‘Because it was drilled into us at school. Everything was a competition.’

‘I know. I’m not blaming you, I’m not trying to make you feel any more guilty than you already do. I’m just saying, Nelson was being terrorised, and everything we said and did made the situation worse until he honestly believed his only option was to die. He’s been through hell, and he’s clawed his way back to health, to sanity, to a place where he’s happy. So do me a favour, Dave, please don’t hurt him.’

Nelson picked up on the tension the moment he got back. He punched Steckle - gently - in the arm and told me to ignore everything he’d said to me. Steckle went to do… something while Nelson made more coffee and we ended up back on the couch. If anything that had been said so far that morning gave me any reason to rethink moving back to Chicago, having him sit with one leg slung across my lap and his head against my shoulder wiped any reservations from my mind. 

’Randell’s got protective these last couple of years.’ His hair smelt of apples and I kissed the top of his head. ‘Reliving it all through the interviews with Rachel and with me, reliving it again while he wrote the book. It’s sent him a little bit strange.’

‘And did reliving it all affect you in the same way?’

He seemed to think about that. ‘No…. I mean, not so as I had trouble sleeping, anything like that. When I agreed to the interviews, he made me promise I’d tell him if I needed to stop, if I needed him to scrap the project altogether.’

‘Jesus, Nelson. Are you sure he’s happy just being friends?’

He didn’t answer immediately and the surge of jealousy took my breath away. ‘He’s one hundred percent straight, you’ve nothing to worry about.’ He lifted his head. ‘What did he say to you?’

‘If I break your heart he’ll break my legs?’

‘He better fucking not have.’

That made me laugh. I tightened my arm around his shoulders. I thought if I tried to apologise again he might elbow me in the balls, so I let everything Steckle had said go. Everything except,

‘When were you going to tell me about the epilepsy?’

His head dropped back to my shoulder as he sighed, loud and pointedly. ‘You’ve been here less than a day. I couldn’t tell you everything at once, otherwise you’d have no reason to come back. It’s not a big deal now anyway.’

‘Big enough that you can’t drive.’

‘I couldn’t drive in the first place. I mean, I learnt, but I never got my licence.’

That was a surprise. I was starting to wonder what we’d talked about for three years when we were at school together. I didn’t seem to know anything about him at all. ’Really? How did I not know that?’

‘Probably because I never told you.’

‘What else haven’t you told me?’

‘Dave… I was dead for almost a quarter of an hour. By rights, I should have come back with the brain activity of a jelly fish. Knowing the local cab drivers by name and having to wear gloves in the winter are minuscule prices to pay for being alive.’

‘And the limp?’

‘Don’t knock the limp. It gets me a lot of sympathy from my students. Seriously, you need to quit this.’ He looked up as Steckle came back into the room. ‘Both of you. I am fine.’

Rachel looked well. Marriage clearly suited her. It was good to see her again. There was none of the tension there had been with Nelson, and I guess that said it all. She kept smiling at us like she could see right through the pretence we were making of not being completely into one another. She asked me about New York and I gave her a brief, potted history of me before I told her I was moving back to Chicago. She laughed, and just said, ‘of course you are.’

We went back to Nelson’s that night. His ground floor apartment on the other side of the campus really did feel like the apartment I lived in when we were at school. It was open plan, the bedroom and kitchen through archways off the living room, bathroom along a short corridor. No where for an intruder to hide. But I didn’t mention it.

It was tidier than my place ever was, lighter too, white walls and laminate flooring instead of blue stain and bare boards. He had have a blue fabric suite which looked sinfully comfortable, a rug in the centre of the living room with a wooden coffee table groaning with medical journals and hockey magazines.

I made a comment about the size of his bed, but as a couple minutes later was I lying across the king sized mattress with my Levis around my knees and my cock in his mouth, his answer was lost on me. Or maybe that was his answer. Whatever, I got the message loud and clear.

My flight back to New York was at midday. We made love in his ridiculously big shower before going out to a campus cafe for breakfast; coffee served in pint glasses and caramel apple pancakes to die for. It was going to be a couple of months at least before I could hope to see him again, but he was worth the wait. He was going to scout out vacancies for me, and apartments to rent.

We had a final kiss just as the taxi pulled up, making little promises we both knew would be easy to keep. Then I was on my way to the airport, leaving Nelson and Chicago behind, just as I did ten years ago. At least this time I had plans to return.

Somewhere over Lake Erie I opened my bag and pulled out Steckle’s book. ‘The Debated Meanings of Hokahey’. The first time I’d read the title I’d wondered about it. But I remembered saying it just before they put me under. Pretentious even for me. I got why Steckle had used it. I opened the front cover, and found an inscription there that hadn’t been there before.

In Steckle’s chicken scratch handwriting, it read, ‘It’s never a good day to die, but we all do. Remember what we saved, and why we saved it. Carpe diem, idiot.’


End file.
